The invention disclosed herein relates generally to data storage systems in computer networks and, more particularly, to improvements in allocating system resources by automatically grouping storage system components such as hardware, software, or data components.
There are many different computing architectures for storing electronic data. Individual computers typically store electronic data in volatile storage devices such as Random Access Memory (RAM) and one or more nonvolatile storage devices such as hard drives, tape drives, or optical disks, that form a part of or are directly connectable to the individual computer. In a network of computers such as a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), storage of electronic data is typically accomplished via servers and storage devices accessible via the network. These individual network storage devices may be networkable tape drives, optical libraries, Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID), CD-ROM jukeboxes, and other devices.
There are also many different system processing and management architectures for such storage systems. One common architecture is a client-server architecture or two-tier architecture. The client-server architecture is a network architecture in which servers are used to manage system operations and components, such as storage operations, storage devices, databases, network traffic and processors, and other operations and components, for clients, which are typically computers running applications.
In general, when a system component, such as a client or a server, or other component, is newly added to the system or reallocated according to system storage requirements, each component must be individually configured in the network storage system. For example, the component must be associated with other existing system components or storage operations, information about network pathways to connect to the new component must be input into the system, and other system configuration requirements must also be entered. This requires that a system administrator set forth a new system configuration each time a new system component is added. In certain small scale storage systems, adding each new component may be practicable, however, in systems having thousands of components, adding new components and respective individual configurations for each becomes onerous. There is therefore a need for improved methods for adding and configuring storage system components.